Keep My Words

“Who’s this jerk you keep writing about?” my mom asked.  I had called her from the dog park while Gherkin was socializing.  “The one who asked you to go to the beach with his mom and then said he just invited you because he wanted to have fun or something?”

“Well, that post was actually about two different guys. But the guy you’re talking about is someone I was seeing for like eight months.  It’s funny you brought that up because I was going to write about him today.”  (Obviously, that story will have to wait.)  “He’s not a-”

She cut me off.  “He’s a jerk.  He’s not a good person.  You need to meet someone as amazing as your father.  Someone who treats you like an equal.”

“I know Mom.  And I’m pretty much over it.  Now it’s just good ammunition for my writing.  But he doesn’t want to be a jerk. I think he tries not to be a jerk.  He may even be oblivious to-”

She cut me off again.  “Look, there are other fish in the sea.  I dated a lot of jerks before I met your father.”

“I bet,” I remarked.  “At least I’m the one who ended it.  I was tired of being treated that way.”  I wanted to say more.  We really did care about each other, and we got along so well.  It just didn’t work out.  Sometimes things just don’t work out.

“You deserve better,” she assured me.  He had told me that, too.  “I’m sorry, I’m done preaching,” she said.

“No, it’s fine.  You and Dad actually make me believe that things can work out one day.  You remind me that people can really be in love,” I told her.

When Rona met my parents, she asked my father what the “secret” was.  He said luck.  My parents have been married for 30 years, and they still adore each other.  It’s wonderful.

Most holidays I am faced with this conversation:

“You better hope that one day you find a man as great as your father,” my mom will say.

“No, no,” my dad will respond, “I am the lucky one.  I am lucky that someone as beautiful and amazing as your mother agreed to marry me.”

They hug, they kiss, I roll my eyes, and we commence eating and drinking.

My parents are really the greatest people in the world.  I’ve written about my father before.  My mother is equally inspiring.  One of my fondest adult memories was when, in my early college years, I asked her for money to buy bras.

“What do you need bras for?” she asked.  “When I was your age, we didn’t even wear bras.”  (Oh, to be 20-something in the early 70s.)

“But Mom,” I complained, “people will see my nipples.”

“What, you don’t think people know you have nipples?” she argued.

I know my parents must have been incredible when they were my age.  Photographs prove that they were gorgeous, and if their personalities today are any representation of what they were back then, I can’t imagine hanging out with cooler people.

If they are lucky to have each other, than I am twice as lucky to have them both.

Mom & Dad, 1979 (above), Me & Mom, sometime in the 80s (below)

The happy couple, 2008 (below)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Pictures, Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.